The restaurant turns out some gorgeous plates—works of art that, as a diner, I marveled at for long moments before eating them. What I hadn’t considered was that those long, thin strands of lemon zest, tiny green lemon thyme leaves, and perfect blades of micro lemongrass weren’t just readily available garnishes. They came from someone’s hard work in the prep kitchen. And today, that someone was me.
My herb-picking duties were as follows: Take a package each of nepitella mint, micro lemongrass, and hyssop leaves, along with a bunch of lemon thyme. Pick 45 mint leaves, 15 blades of micro lemongrass, 60 hyssop leaves (or clusters of them, if small enough), and enough lemon thyme leaves to sparsely cover the bottoms of 3 pint containers. The leaves must be uniformly sized, a certain shade of green, and have absolutely no bruising or wilting. The lemon thyme leaves must be large enough to be handled by tweezers.
There is a window in the pastry kitchen that looks out into the savory kitchen, where another apprentice was undergoing a similar process with micro greens and micro celery. We were at it for almost an hour.
So after day 2, I have made foams, sauces, and various other components of the restaurant’s beautifully complex desserts. I can’t wait to see how they all get plated together.
